Quote - Hi, Ravenous. I am where you are, good with basic lights, but somehow missing that extra quality. I do not have a particular tutorial to recommend (I am paying attention to the responses in this thread : ), but I have noticed that many of those extra light touches are taken care of in the advanced render settings in C6. The ambient occlusion and indirect lighting settings in the render room are like magic. They do increase the render time enormously.

Nice to hear that someone else is on the same level as me, or should I say I'm sorry? ;-)

I too realized that you can do magic with the advanced render settings. It just feels like they should be the final touch rather than something one should rely on when building a scene if you know what I mean? Indirect lighting adds that extra depth to the render but if the lighting in the scene is crappy, the indirect light will just make it less crappy.

GKDantas link above was great! It explained things that you might think is obvious but never thought about. For example, I made a habit of placing a light in front of my objects basically in the same direction as the camera. If you read that guide you'll quikly understand why that make my renders "flat". Light coming from the side will define the shapes in the scene in much better way. For example, the bump map on a concrete wall will not really be visible unless you can see the shadows from it. So directing a light straight towards the wall isn't the best of ideas. Light from an angle on the other hand, will produce shadows and let the texture come to life.

Simple stuff like that. Might be obvious but I never thought of it. I think I will return to that guide on regular basis (thank you GKDantas!). So more stuff like that please!